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JOHN Y. FOSTER, Esq., 



ON 



THE WAR HISTORY 



OP 



NEW JEKSEY, 



FOB THE YEAR 1866. 



ADJUTANT Q ■ 



TRENTON, N. J.: 

PKINTBD AT THE OFFICE OF THE STATE OAZETTE. 

1867. 



"EB 24 1905 
D. ofD, 



ADJUTAllT G^ '.]W JERSEY. 



REPORT 

ON 



THE WAR HISTORY. 



His Excellency Marcus L. Ward, Governor, Sfc. : 

Sir : — At your request, I submit herewith a statement of the pro- 
gress of the proposed History of New Jersey's part in the late war, 
the preparation of which you honored me by committing to my hands. 

Immediately upon my appointment as histiographer in April last, 
I addressed myself to the collection of materials for the work, open- 
ing communication with our principal officers and other persons sup- 
posed to be in possession of valuable or essential facts as to the oper- 
ations of our soldiers, and soliciting, through the press, the delivery 
into my hands of private letters and all documents calculated to fa- 
cilitate the completion of the undertaking. As the result of this ef- 
fort, and of personal interviews with officers and privates of our regi- 
ments, I have accumulated a vast mass of letters, narratives, diaries, 
order and dispatch-books, and other documents, embodying most im- 
portant facts, and in some cases complete records, of the services of 
our troops. These papers, however, relate to but a portion, perhaps 
one-half, of the whole number of regiments sent by us into the field. 
As to many of the others, I have been unable as yet to obtain any 
satisfactory statements, and as to a few it would seem that only the 
most meagre and imperfect sketches can be anticipated — the most 
persistent and thorough search having failed to discover any data 
whatever in reference to their actual experience. It may seem in- 
credible, but it is nevertheless true, that some of the regiments failed 
altogether to make regular reports to the State authorities, while in 
a few instances reports were never made as required, except in so far 
as related to the merest routine life and proceedings. Nor is this all. 
The commandants of these regiments have no personal records at all 
relating to their operations. One would suppose that a natural pride 
in their commands, and a desire to perpetuate the evidences and me- 
morials of their gallantry, would have induced in all officers a careful 
preservation of all papers, official and otherwise ; and it must cer- 
tainly be regarded as inexplicable that such was not the case. Those 
officers who, like Gen. McAllister and a few others, did thus faith- 
fully fulfil their obigations to their commands in this particular, have 
most generously volunteered all possible assistance in the completion 
of the work which has fallen to my hands ; but as to the regiments of 



2 THE WAR HISTORY. 

which there are, so far as yet discovered, no trustworthy records in 
existence, the task of producing any accurate or complete history 
must, obviously, be one of slow and difficult progress. 

The act of tlio Legislature under whicli the work is authorized, re- 
quires the preparation of " a succinct history of the part borne by 
New Jersey in the war, of the services of her general officers, and of 
the campaigns of each regiment." Whetlier, under this general pro- 
vision, it was designed to include a narrative of all the events, social, 
religious and political, which marked the inner life of our people 
during the progress of the struggle, may perhaps be questioned ; but 
it was S0 palpably essential to a complete record of our services 
in the national behalf, that everything relating to the home-side of 
the conflict — the philanthropy and generous, inflexible patriotism of 
the masses, the action of our State administrations, and the conspicu- 
ous performances of particular men — should be faithfully set forth, 
that I determined at once to make tlie history, as far as possible, an 
exhaustive and complete exposition of New Jersey's work, from the 
beginning to the close of the war. Accordingly, I have endeavored 
to procure, from official papers and other sources not ordinarily ac- 
cessible, such facts as exhibit the character and magnitude of our 
contributions in promotion of the moral and sanitary comfort of our 
troops ; the amount of local and State appropriations in the way of 
bounties ; the number of volunteers from this State who served in the 
regiments of other States; the general drift and influence of the 
policy of our religious bodies; the efiFect upon the general prosperity 
of the withdrawal from the producing classes of so many thousands of 
skilled operatives ; together with an analysis of the legislation of the 
war period, and the general attitude of the people touching the ques- 
tions which the war developed. This portion of the work is, to my 
mnd, quite as important as the military narrative, and at any rate 
its omission would leave the State without any adequate or reliable 
record of the noble part it performed, to wliich to point with satisfac- 
tion in the hereafter. 

The actual present condition of the work is as follows : 1 have 
complete, or nearly so, the narrative of the tliree months' brigade, 
including, of course preliminary chapters as to the condition of the 
State upon the outbreak of hostilities, and its early action in response 
to the first call for troops — making in all some 150 manuscript pages; 
a complete history of the Ninth Regiment, 160 pages ; the 1st Cavalry, 
nearly complete, 250 pages : the Twelfth Regiment, down to the siege 
of Petersburg ; the Eleventh Regiment, with all the official papers of 
Gen. McAllister; the Fifteenth Regiment, nearly complete; the 
Twenty-fifth, Twenth-seventh and Twenty-ninth Regiments, complete 
except as to the Twenty -fifth ; and some 250 manuscript pages of re- 
ports, letters, orders, &c., relating to the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and 
Eighth Regiments, with some detached sketches also of the First and 
Third Regiments of the First Brigade. In addition to all this, I 
have arranged for sketches of the Thirteenth and Thirty-third Regi- 



THE WAR HISTORY. 3 

ments, having already the official papers of the latter in my posses- 
sion, kindly furnished by Gen. Mindel, who still feels a deep interest 
in our New Jersey troops. I have also the records of Beam's Bat- 
tery, and in course of preparation a narrative of the experiences of 
the Jersey volunteers, some twelve hundred in number, who were 
connected with Sickles's Excelsior Brio;ade. 

You will discover from this statement that the work promises to 
be one of formidable proportions. Under any circumstances, it 
seems impossible to reduce the volume to less than nine hundred 
or a thousand pages, unless the smaller styles of type are used, 
which would to many entirely destroy its value. You will also 
readily conjecture that the completion of the work may occupy 
the greater part of the coming year, if continued upon the plan now 
proposed. Should the Legislature authorize an abridgement of the 
regimental iiistories, as I beg respectfully to suggest, and the substi- 
tution of brigade narratives so far as may be possible, then the volume 
may be diminished in bulk and completed at an earlier day than now 
seems possible, and without at all impairing the value of the work. 
Many of our regiments having had precisely the same experience, the 
record of one will give all the essential facts as to the services of 
others, and to repeat in each case the same statement of camp and 
lield life and operations would only swell the volume to unwieldy pro- 
portions without increasing its interest or accuracy. As exhibiting 
the extent to which the regimental style of narrative would expand 
the book, I may mention that the War History of Iowa (which State 
furnished forty infantry and nine cavalry regiments, with several bat- 
teries of artillery), prepared upon this plan, occupies 743 closely 
printed pages, and is by no means exhaustive or complete. 

It is proper to say that the New Jersey Historical Society have 
generously placed all the resources of their library at my disposal, 
and extended me other facilities, in the preparation of the work. 
Their example is worthy of enlarged recognition by other societies. 

Thanking you for the judicious counsel and active assistance you 
have given me in the prosecution of my labor' ind trusting that they 
may be completed to your satisfaction and that o, '^e people at large, 
I remain, with high consideration, 

Yours, &c., JOHN Y. FOSTER. 

Trentox, December 24, 1866. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

013 703 877 8 



